Peaceful protest is a right. But history tells us violence always loses

The story is becoming depressingly familiar. A march that ­began with such youthful idealism ends in an orgy of mindless vandalism.

In the chilly evening air, a handful of ­anarchist thugs whip the crowd into a greater frenzy. Windows are smashed and memorials defiled; and in the chaos, the cause at the centre of the protest is almost forgotten.

We have all seen such scenes before. And yet on Thursday night, as the ­student ­protests against the Coalition’s tuition fees hike turned shockingly ugly, it was hard to resist the sense that an invisible line had been crossed.

Street battle: Rioters clash with police during a protest in Westminster, central London

Millions of middle-class parents have their doubts about the Government’s plans for university fees. But to most decent ­observers, the spectacle of ­protesters ­urinating on a statue of Sir Winston ­Churchill, attacking the Treasury and the Supreme Court and ­desecrating the ­Cenotaph, the memorial to our nation’s fallen heroes, was utterly unforgivable.

And all that was before the most ­horrifying development of a genuinely shocking evening — the anarchists’ attack on the car carrying Prince Charles, our future King, and his terrified wife Camilla to the Royal Variety Performance, one of the highlights of the charity calendar.

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In that moment, a handful of despicable idiots destroyed everything that their more responsible colleagues had been working for. Can they really have thought that attacking a blameless couple in their 60s, part of a family that symbolises patriotism and national identity, was the way to win Middle Britain for their cause?

But the truth is that the thugs were not thinking at all. Yielding to the cheap thrills of adolescent violence, and betraying ­thousands of students who exercised their ­democratic right to peaceful protest, they proved only that they have learned ­absolutely nothing from history.

Streets of rage: Protestors surround a fire between Oxford Street and Regent Street at a demonstration protest against the rise of university tuition fees

Disgraceful: A student relieves himself on a statue of Sir Winston Churchill while protesters pose atop a bonfire in central London

Attack: Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, react after their car was targeted by angry protesters in London

The fact is that vandalism and violence are utterly unproductive. Not only do they drive the real issues off the front pages, fatally discrediting the cause they are supposed to advance, but they alienate the ordinary, ­law-abiding voters on whom success depends.

The tragic irony, of course, is that millions of people are instinctively sympathetic to the students’ concerns about tuition fees.

Having taught at one of Britain’s biggest universities, I am well aware that higher education is in a desperate ­condition. Almost with every passing week, our universities fall further behind their American counterparts.

Thanks to the ludicrous drive to get more people into university without providing the resources to make it work, classes are too full, lecturers are enormously overworked and far too many students leave with Mickey Mouse degrees, only to find the job market a harsh and unforgiving place.

At some basic level, the Coalition was damned whatever it did. And the rebellion of six Tory MPs, including David Davis, the conscience of the Right, is a reminder that the Lib Dems are not alone in worrying that higher fees might work against social mobility.

The irony is that if they really cared about the cause they ­purport
to represent, and if they had learned anything at all from history, the
extremists would never have sunk to the depths of Thursday night.

The tuition fees debate is far from over. When middle-class parents, already almost suffocated by financial demands, find themselves ­footing the bill, the Government may find itself facing the wrath of Middle Britain.

And while it is easy to mock the idealism of adolescent know-alls, it was initially refreshing to see a new generation of students passionately interested in the political process and the future of their country — a stark contrast with the ­apathy, materialism and self-interest that too often characterises modern Britain.

Peaceful protest is not merely a right for which thousands of Britons fought and died in the last century. It is one of the ­cornerstones of our democracy.

Just across from Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square, the image of Nelson Mandela is a compelling reminder that sometimes, ordinary men and women have to make a stand against intolerance and injustice.

But there is a vast difference, a yawning chasm, between the marches, placards and songs of the peaceful majority, and the sickening violence of the anarchist thugs who tried to despoil the symbols of our democracy.

Violence is a cancer; once it has eaten into the body politic, it becomes increasingly difficult to root it out. And in an age when it is easy to whip up youthful passions using the new ­technology of Twitter and Facebook, the onus on responsible student leaders to stand up against the hooligans is greater than ever.

The irony is that if they really cared about the cause they ­purport to represent, and if they had learned anything at all from history, the extremists would never have sunk to the depths of Thursday night.

For if the last century furnishes a clear and unambiguous example of protest getting results, it is the case of the American Civil Rights Movement in the Fifties and Sixties, which tore down the barriers of segregation and racial prejudice not through violence, but through the power of reason and the strength of its moral argument.

Fury: British students protest in central London against government plans to triple tuition fees

One reason that the civil rights leader Martin Luther King remains a hero, not just to black Americans, but to millions across the world, is that he stood so clearly against violence and extremism. Inspired by the teachings of Gandhi, King knew that the movement for black rights could win only by securing the moral high ground.

‘We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,’ he explained in 1964. ‘We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical ­violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.’

Through all the struggles of the civil rights movement, from ­boycotts to marches, Martin Luther King insisted that the protests must remain orderly, dignified and peaceful. King had learned the lessons of history.

‘The ultimate weakness of ­violence,’ he told his followers, ‘is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.’

Since thousands of youngsters study Martin Luther King’s movement in history lessons today, it is baffling that so many protesters seem oblivious to his words. Indeed, far from emulating the peaceful civil rights ­protests, too many students seem bent on copying the other famous movement of the ­Sixties, the campaign against the ­Vietnam War.

For although ageing hippies often like to pat themselves on the back for having ended an immoral war, the truth is that the Vietnam protests were a complete failure. Bereft of leadership, hijacked by anarchists and troublemakers, many of the late-Sixties marches ended in bloodshed.

Well-educated students often shouted obscene slogans, ­horrifying Middle America. They burned American flags, waved the emblems of the Viet Cong, and even chanted the name of the Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

If they choose violence, they must face the consequences. Many
Londoners are already sick of the disorder on their streets. Next time,
the Metropolitan Police may not be so gentle.

The results were utterly ­predictable. Even though most Americans actually thought the war was a mistake, they loathed the protesters even more than they disliked the conflict.

By forfeiting the moral high ground, by alienating ordinary families, the ­protesters ended up doing irreparable damage to their own cause. Middle America rallied not to the students’ cause, but to their embattled president, Richard Nixon.

The protests became bigger and bloodier; but the war went on. And in the end the movement had horrific repercussions, as a handful of ­students were drawn into splinter ­terrorist groups: the Weathermen in America, the Baader-Meinhof gang in West Germany.

Of course, the vast majority of the students who have ­protested against tuition fees would be horrified by the analogy. Yet here was conclusive proof that as Martin Luther King had argued, violence becomes a descending spiral.

After all, the Baader-Meinhof gang, too, was born in a climate of youthful idealism, and began with acts of petty vandalism. Yet by the time its bloody rampage was over, 34 people had been killed, most of them entirely innocent chauffeurs and customs officials.

In the last few weeks, moreover, some of our student protesters have seemed hell-bent on showing their ignorance of history.

To defile the statute of Churchill —the man who, more than any other, came to symbolise democratic resistance to fascism — was as stupid as it was shocking. But it was hardly an isolated incident. Some protesters threw bricks and scaffolding poles, others carried bottles of urine to hurl at the police.

Violence in the streets: British riot police clash with demonstrators in Parliament Square during student demonstrations

Can anyone seriously have thought that such antics would win applause from the rest of the country? Can the students have believed that they could rally wavering MPs?

As for the attack on Charles and Camilla, it was not only intolerable but utterly unforgivable — whatever your views of the monarchy. This was ­violence for its own sake, bestial and ugly.

Almost unbelievably, however, some of the protesters seem proud of themselves. On the Guardian comment websites, Left-wingers rushed to applaud the militants. ‘F*** Churchill,’ one wrote delightedly, while another thought the attack on Charles and Camilla ‘hilarious’.

How self-deluding can you get? For the truth is that in that moment, the militants did enormous and irreparable damage to their cause.

Most of us will happily put up with small inconveniences so that others can exercise their freedom to protest. What we will not accept are violent threats to law and order, the desecration of national memorials, and the intimidation of our Royal Family.

The last few days will prove a turning point. The students can choose to follow Martin Luther King’s example, taking their case to the ­public, lobbying politicians and relying on the power of persuasion, or they can ­follow the path of violence.

But let them be warned. If they choose violence, they must face the consequences. Many Londoners are already sick of the disorder on their streets. Next time, the Metropolitan Police may not be so gentle.

And here is one last warning for them. Choose violence, and everything you have marched for will have been in vain. You will forfeit the ­sympathy of Middle Britain; you will lose any chance of a fair hearing in Westminster; you will undermine the very cause you claim to support.

History’s lesson is unambiguous: choose violence, and you will lose.

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Tuition fees vote protest: Peaceful protest is a right but violence always loses